Cherry, naturally

My first natural edged bowl was a pretty successful endeavor. It started as a chunk of firewood. Several months ago, I split it and mounted half of it to a lathe faceplate. Then I got busy and forgot about it. Yesterday though, I found this bowl inside of it.

The log came from a home in Bella Vista, Arkansas. A woman posted an ad in the local paper advertising free wood, for anyone willing to bring a chainsaw to her house. In retrospect, this tree would have been on top of her house several months later if she hadn't done so. Our recent ice storm last February would have surely toppled it. At the time I thought I'd start a pile of firewood in the backyard.

Fast forward a few months, to what I call the "lathe craze of aught 9." My friends Tim and Adam were turning pens and bowls left and right. I spent one evening at Tim's dad's shop trying my hand at a pen or two as well. I was hooked. I eventually found a used lathe for sale (on a completely unrelated site for Airsoft enthusiasts!). By this time the lathe fad was of course over. In fact the airsoft craze died down right after that. I tried a bowl and a goblet on my new tool, just to try it out, but then got busy with some things.

Last week I gave the shop it's first real cleaning in months. I found this old chunk of wood, and the faceplate still mounted to it. It had split pretty badly on the ends, and what may have been a semi-wet piece was now pretty completely dried out. On the plus side, the wood was more stable now than it was. However, turning green wood is much easier on me and the tools. I decided to give it a try.

Learning from the test bowl I did last spring, I took a reciprocating saw with a long course blade to the log and tried to make a roughly octagonal piece before attempting to turn anything. My lathe has only four speeds, which require moving the belt to attain them. The slowest speed will rock the lathe pretty bad if a piece is lopsided. When this happens, I need to basically steady the machine with one hand, while using a gouge to make the blank circular (and balanced) with the other. It is a little sketchy.

I spent about 30 minutes getting it into a better shape, and then gave it a rest. I had some things with fresh paint on them in the shop, and realized I was about to kick up quite a mess. I left the piece mounted there over the next few days. On Saturday, I was loading some tools to head to the job site, when I saw what this blank was going to be. I had considered a natural edge bowl before, but in a green piece, that bark edge will come away from the bowl, as the wood dries. In this one, I already had a dry piece.

I was eager to start it, but it wasn't until Sunday afternoon I had the time. The dry hardwood was a bear on my chisels, and I made several trips to the grinder to but a keen edge on them. I used primarily a large gouge to get the shape right, and alternated between the inside cut and the outside cut as I worked the bowl to the shape. I used a parting tool to remove it from the plate, and to define the bottom edge.

I spent a good deal of time sanding this piece, but still can find faint tool marks. I am not sure how to remedy that. Perhaps just more sanding? I did quite the number on myself during this part of the process. I used my hands to apply pressure to the paper while it was spinning and burned my index and middle fingers pretty bad. The heat just built up really fast! I've got a small blister to show for it. I thought I had a better solution when I wrapped a tennis ball with sandpaper and used it to apply pressure in a contoured fashion. I was feeling pretty cocky until the sandpaper skipped and the ball bounced and rebounded my hand against the spinning bowl edge. I barked the back of my knuckles pretty well on that one. Nothing like a bit of blood for the effort.

For finish, I started with a caramel tinted shellac, but wasn't happy with it. It seemed too dark, and I wanted a more natural color. I sanded it back off and used a spray on water based poly. It needs another coat, but I think it is the better finish. If the bowl hadn't split, I would have been more worried about using a food-safe finish, but as the end grain split makes it too porous to hold anything, the poly works fine for this piece. I'm looking forward to the next one.